Cotton, once referred to as white gold, is now more often discussed as Uzbekistan's curse. It appears that this is a highly complicated case of dependence on something that is both the cause of and the remedy for development deficits in this Asian country. What are the social and human rights consequences of cultivating this monoculture?
The history of cotton cultivation dates back to the 19th century, when the present-day territories of Uzbekistan were partly occupied by the Russian Empire. With the rise of the Industrial Revolution, the demand for cotton as a key raw material for textile production increased in industrializing countries. In the Russian Empire, the textile industry was among the most developed industries. In the plans of the Russian emperor, large cotton plantations were to be established in Turkestan so that the empire would become independent of supplies from the United States. These plans were, however, disrupted by the First World War, when the empire collapsed and the Soviet Union was born.
With the establishment of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924, the transformation of the former Bukhara Emirate into the main source of cotton for the entire Soviet Union began. The very process of collectivization, that is, the non-voluntary merging of former private farmers into cooperatives, did not proceed smoothly and was only consolidated in the 1930s. Before the onset of the communist regime, cotton was cultivated only in the Fergana Valley region.
Cotton self-sufficiency under Stalin’s leadership of the USSR
It was clear that further increases in cotton production in Central Asia were impossible without expanding arable land. This is not a simple task, given that the territory of present-day Uzbekistan has a continental climate with extensive arid areas. It should be noted that in these regions, traditional irrigation methods already existed—such as the use of wooden water wheels called chigir that could lift water to field level, or the construction of underground irrigation canals that were less prone to rapid evaporation. This traditional knowledge was quickly set aside in the 1930s, when the Soviet government was carrying out mega- projects, some of which had never been implemented in the Russian Empire—partly thanks to the arrival of American engineers who helped shape the new face of Central Asia.
Only during Stalin’s leadership of the USSR were the goals of collectivization and cotton self-sufficiency achieved. Arid areas of the Uzbek countryside were turned into cotton fields through irrigation, implemented by building a network of irrigation canals on a size and scale never previously seen in the area.
The 1920s and 1930s can therefore be described as a period when the Soviet Union was “conquering nature”: dismissing local knowledge (local residents, for example, never built irrigation canals as straight lines, arguing that a river must be allowed to “see” where it can continue flowing— in practice, they respected the terrain). Another important element of the traditional way of growing cotton was crop rotation, typically between cotton and alfalfa, the latter being fed to livestock, which produced manure as an important fertilizer source. Yet Soviet-era propaganda was somewhat aggressive: it declared a “war on primitiveness,” “attacks on the desert,” and “the soil is not bad, only the farmer is bad.”
The land is not bad; the farmer is only bad
Loud rhetoric was only one component of the Soviet irrigation program for semi-desert areas of Central Asia for cotton cultivation. This monoculture is much more labor-intensive than, for example, wheat or rice, requiring the application of large amounts of chemicals, work in unfavorable climate conditions, and the absence of basic infrastructure. In the 1940s, the region was hit by a malaria epidemic, against which the Soviet government did not have enough medication. There was also widespread respiratory, eye, and skin disease, caused by omnipresent cotton pollen and dust in the fields.
It is for this reason that the process of cotton cultivation can be characterized by the use of large numbers of forced workers—from prisoners and forced deportees from western regions of the USSR to so-called administrative sources, that is, employees of the state sector. The number of forcibly resettled people east of the Urals across the entire Soviet Union was 2,303,279, including Russian Germans, Karachays, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks. In Uzbekistan alone, in 1945, 181,800 such exiles lived under a special regime.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, cotton production in Uzbekistan fell significantly, but it still remains the most important producer in the region. From 1991 to 2016, Uzbekistan held sixth place in the world ranking of largest producers according to the FAO.
Distancing from the Soviet model of economic management has succeeded in some areas and failed in others. With independence, opportunities gradually opened for a shift toward a more liberal model of agricultural production. Starting in 1991, the contours of what is called the Uzbek model began to emerge, that is, a specific arrangement of land ownership and agricultural production. Out of former kolkhozes and sovkhozes, collective farms began to emerge, which still operate in a similar way; however, so-called dehkan and shirkat farms were also introduced. Dehkan and shirkat represent the introduction of elements of private family (dehkan) and cooperative (shirkat) ownership, specifically lifelong leasing with the right to pass land to descendants.
These farms today account for about 90% of current cotton production in Uzbekistan. The farmers themselves, however, are subject to a highly controversial system of indirect taxation, based on a state order, through which they are forced to produce cotton in the quantity set by the state and sell it for prices also set by the state.
The system of dual prices and indirect taxation, the state procurement order for cotton production, and partial privatization, all described above, leave wide scope for corruption that cuts across all layers of society. According to Transparency International, Uzbekistan was ranked 157th out of 180 in the Corruption Perceptions Index. Twenty percent of local residents consider the fight against corruption the top development priority; another 20% say that fighting corruption would significantly contribute to poverty reduction and economic growth.
Forced labour on fields inherited from Soviet times
The slogans from the socialist campaign era, “Hamma pachtaga!” (Uzbek: “Everyone for cotton!”), did not disappear during the period of independent Uzbekistan, at least when it comes to cotton harvesting. In its best years, its production was roughly 2.6 tons per hectare, which corresponds to the global average. While in the United States or Brazil harvest is mostly done by machines, and in India mainly by farmers themselves, the situation in Uzbekistan is somewhat different. Cotton harvesting is strategically important for state leadership, and thus, for example during the Karimov era, up to five million people were forced into field labor annually.
Since Soviet times, the state inherited not only a state-run economy but also the practice of using administrative resources—i.e., state-paid employees—for forced field labor. It is quite common during the harvest season for employees of local offices, small entrepreneurs, teachers, healthcare staff, students, and secondary-school students to work in the fields. In most cases, they receive no payment for their work. If they refused to take part in the harvest, they could be expelled from school or dismissed from their jobs. One way to avoid this was to prove medical unfitness, or to pay for a substitute worker, which creates broad opportunities for corruption.
But this is not the only way to force citizens into greater participation in cotton-harvesting campaigns. For example, in 2015 in the Samarkand region, local authorities, in connection with the start of the cotton harvest, prohibited weddings and banquets in restaurants. In the Bukhara region, prostitutes and people dependent on alcohol and drugs—registered with the local police department—were sent to worksites.
Child labor is also present during cotton campaigns
An integral part of cotton cultivation in Uzbekistan is child labor. The described system of forced labor sometimes requires participation by people under the age of 16. When a visible labor shortage exists at field sites—whether it is regular workers or state-sector employees—secondary-school students or family members are brought into fieldwork, especially when families cannot afford to pay compensation for economically active family members. Field work takes place not only in hard conditions that endanger children’s health but also during school hours, directly affecting the quality of education received.
Evidence of forced labor in cotton cultivation is extensive and has been covered in reports by independent human rights organizations as well as in the media. The paradox remains that despite the fact that child labor is banned by the Constitution of Uzbekistan and a broad range of other formal commitments, it is still present during cotton campaigns. Uzbekistan has ratified all key international conventions on child labor; however, in practice, more than 240,000 children aged 5 to 14 were used as labor in 2006 (this includes participation of children not only in agriculture but in other sectors as well).
Uzbekistan shows gradual progress regarding the use of forced labor in cotton production, but how sufficient that progress is remains a matter of debate. A case tied to the World Bank’s investments in agricultural projects in southern Karakalpakstan illustrates this. The irrigation investment, totaling 337.43 million USD, was conditional, among other things, on the World Bank’s insistence on special emphasis on the prohibition of forced labor. The project also included monitoring of field labor, which was to be overseen by the International Labour Organization. In 2017, the ILO stated that “The unacceptability of child labor is recognized by all parts of society: authorities, teachers, experts, farmers, parents, and children themselves. Uzbekistan has progressively phased out organized child labor.”
The current core of the problem: cotton-harvest quotas and low sector wages
The government of Uzbekistan, led by current President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has repeatedly stated that its goal is to eliminate both child labor and any forms of forced labor. A clear sign of progress is the reduced total number of teachers and medics who are no longer sent en masse to the fields. Another positive shift is the state’s effort to increase wages for cotton picking, which rise progressively from the start to the end of the season, but are still insufficient to make this demanding work more attractive to pickers who can earn much more in countries like Kazakhstan.
At the core of the forced labor problem are both the cotton-harvest quotas imposed by the central government on regions and the low sector wages—from September 2018, cotton pickers receive between 650 soums (US$0.08) and 1,000 soums (US$0.12). These wages lead to labor outflow to neighboring states. A major consequence is also the gender dimension of forced labor: it is mostly women who work in the fields.
Cultural aspects of forced labor
For the state, cotton remains a key commodity, a matter of national welfare, and field work is described as hashar—that is, voluntary labor with deep roots in Uzbek culture. The cultural dimension of forced labor also includes perceptions of authority in society, which have infused Uzbek cultural life since Soviet times, through the long authoritarian rule of Islam Karimov, up to the present day.
The absence of democratic elements preserves the current status quo and leads to strict observance of unwritten rules. Sometimes this leads to completely absurd situations: in 2015, during a visit to the Fergana Valley by then-Prime Minister Mirzijojev, local officials wanted to show what a beautiful and prosperous village they had, even though the harvest was already over. As a result, 400 farmers were forced by the local government to glue cotton bolls back onto the stalks with adhesive.
Text: Štěpán Vaškevič, Photo: Anti-Slavery International The author is a master’s student in International Development Studies at Palacký University in Olomouc. He is an editor of Zajímej.se, the first Czech media outlet on circular economy. He is from Belarus and among his professional and academic interests are development trajectories of states of the former Soviet bloc. Note: The article was created within the course Development Opportunities of South Asia at the Department of Development and Environmental Studies of the Faculty of Arts at Palacký University in Olomouc (under the supervision of Dr. S. Šafaříkova and Dr. B. Markovič Baluchová).